Winners and Losers

The evil, necropolitical core of the American soul: Between locking up immigrant children in cages until they literally keel over dead; retaining close ties with Saudi Arabia, even as they murder journalists and kill thousands in Yemen, all for the sake of oil and weapons deals; and being more willing to deploy troops to the border in order to try and win an election than to deploy them to help American citizens in Puerto Rico recover from a devastating hurricane, it’s really been a banner year for the country’s deep-seated lust for lubricating the gears of empire with the blood of the downtrodden

Matthew McConaughey: In winning the California governor’s race, the Academy Award winner proved once again that his “Gavin Newsom” character is his greatest role ever

Voting-rights reform: Between several ballot measures passing in states like Michigan in Florida; outcry over egregious disenfranchisement in Georgia; blatantly undemocratic candidates like Kris Kobach losing; and the ever-more-obvious disparity between vote share and legislative seats won, this key and increasingly prominent issue is likely to continue being flagrantly disregarded by those in power (more…)

Argentina: At least the spirit of revolution against an incompetent government is alive in this South American nation, evidenced by the players of its national football team rising up against their coach halfway through the World Cup

Latent, unconsummated homophobia: Finally, a generation of liberals have an excuse to let out this long-repressed emotion in lieu of coming up with any actual jokes or insights about the relationship between Trump and Putin

Europe: I mean, they’re getting screwed over on the Russia thing too, but at least they’re trying to do something about the excessive massing of power in the hands of a small number of colossal corporations (more…)

The U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team: Given the current geopolitical climate, avoid an uncomfortable trip to Russia next summer

Panama: Will replace the U.S. at the World Cup, making the fact that the U.S. beat them 4-0 just this past Friday that much funnier

Landon Donovan: Was smart to retire when he did

Iceland, Portugal, Serbia, Belgium, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay: Just reminding y’all that these nations, whose combined population is about a sixth of the United States’, all managed to qualify for the World Cup by beating either the same or harder opposition than the U.S. faced

Donald J. Trump: Proven right, as the U.S. clearly demonstrated that it was tired of winning

LOSERS:

The United States Soccer Federation: In fairness, could not possibly have foreseen that their desperation-fueled appointment of a crappy, uninspiring coach might come back to bite them

Serious assessments of the U.S.’s technical and tactical failures: Already being ignored in favor of criticizing the team’s lack of “personality”

Trinidad and Tobago: Should feel pretty bad about spoiling three hundred million people’s dreams of seeing their country stumble to a limp third-place finish in their World Cup group

Christian Pulisic: The only American player I’m going to miss seeing at the World Cup, which is damning in its own way

Bruce Arena: Ultimately, you have to chalk up this defeat to Arenal failure

The terrible pun I just subjected you to: I am so, so sorry

Chile: Also failed to qualify for the World Cup today, which is notable because they’re an actually good team